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True Colors

Archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann insists his eye-popping reproductions of ancient Greek sculptures are right on target

The painted replica of a c. 490 B.C. archer (at the Parthenon in Athens) testifies to German archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann’s painstaking research into the ancient sculpture’s colors. The original statue came from the Temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aegina.
(Stiftung Archäologie, Munich)

To find out what the Greek gods looked like, it would seem reasonable to start in Room 18 of the British Museum. That's the gallery devoted to the Elgin Marbles, grand trophies removed from the Parthenon in Athens between 1801 and 1805 by Thomas Bruce, seventh earl of Elgin, the British envoy to Constantinople from 1799 to 1803, when Greece was under Turkish domination. Even at the time, Elgin's action struck some as the rape of a great heritage. Lord Byron's largely autobiographical poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" contains this stinging rebuke:

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Archaeologists such as Germany’s Vinzenz Brinkmann are reconstructing some of the colorfully painted sculptures and glittering bronze statuary that existed during classical antiquity. A replica of a stele erected c. 510 B.C. on the grave of the Greek warrior, Aristion, commemorates his exploits in battle. He is dressed in yellow bronze or leather armor, a blue helmet (part of which is missing), and matching blue shinguards trimmed in yellow.
(Stiftung Archäologie, Munich)

A reconstruction in bronze of the head of a young athlete shows he has been crowned with the fillet of a victor. Based on an original dating from the early 1st century A.D., the head was found in Naples in the 1700s as part of a complete figure. Reportedly, its discoverers detached the head when they realized the metal statue was too heavy to carry away intact. The striking effect of the portrait is accentuated by inlaid eyes made of silver, with pupils of red semi-precious stones, and gilding on the lips, brows and fillet.
(Stiftung Archäologie, Munich)

The “Alexander Sarcophagus” (c. 320 B.C.), was found in the royal necropolis of the Phoenician city of Sidon. But it was named for the illustrious Macedonian ruler, Alexander the Great, depicted in battle against the Persians in this painted replica. Alexander’s sleeved tunic suggests his conquests have thrust him into the new role of Eastern King, but his lion-skin cap ties him to the mythical hero, Herakles, and alludes to divine descent.
(Stiftung Archäologie, Munich)

The partial color reconstruction of Athena is based on a c.490 B.C. sculpture of the Goddess from the pediment of the Temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aegina. Vinzenz Brinkmann typically leaves areas white where no evidence of original coloration is found. This rear view of the statue emphasizes the elaborate detailing of Athena’s aegis, or cape, trimmed with the life-like bodies of partially uncoiled green snakes.
(Stiftung Archäologie, Munich)

“If people say, ‘What kitsch,’ it annoys me but I’m not surprised,” says Brinkmann, who, with his wife, archaeologist Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann, colored this reconstruction of the c.550 B.C., “Lion from Loutraki.” Its stunning blue-colored mane is not unique on ancient monuments. Lions often sat atop tombs in ancient Greece, where ornamental details such as the animals’ tuffs of hair and facial markings were painted in bright colors that accented their fur.
(Stiftung Archäologie, Munich)

The painted replica of a c. 490 B.C. archer (at the Parthenon in Athens) testifies to German archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann’s painstaking research into the ancient sculpture’s colors. The original statue came from the Temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aegina.
(Stiftung Archäologie, Munich)

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Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behov'd
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.

To this day, Greece continues to press claims for restitution.

The genius behind the Parthenon's sculptures was the architect and artist Phidias, of whom it was said that he alone among mortals had seen the gods as they truly are. At the Parthenon, he set out to render them in action. Fragments from the eastern gable of the temple depict the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus; those from the western gable show the contest between Athena and Poseidon for the patronage of the city. (As the city's name indicates, she won.) The heroically scaled statues were meant to be seen from a distance with ease.

But that was thousands of years ago. By now, so much of the sculpture is battered beyond recognition, or simply missing, that it takes an advanced degree in archaeology to tease out what many of the figures were up to. Yes, the occasional element—a horse's head, a reclining youth—registers sharp and clear. But for the most part, the sculpture is frozen Beethoven: drapery, volume, mass, sheer energy exploding in stone. Though we seldom think about it, such fragments are overwhelmingly abstract, thus, quintessentially "modern." And for most of us, that's not a problem. We're modern too. We like our antiquities that way.

But we can guess that Phidias would be brokenhearted to see his sacred relics dragged so far from home, in such a fractured state. More to the point, the bare stone would look ravaged to him, even cadaverous. Listen to Helen of Troy, in the Euripides play that bears her name:

My life and fortunes are a monstrosity,
Partly because of Hera, partly because of my beauty.
If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect
The way you would wipe color off a statue.

That last point is so unexpected, one might almost miss it: to strip a statue of its color is actually to disfigure it.